In a manufacturing process of, for example, a LCD device or the like, there has been used a plasma processing apparatus which performs a CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) process, an etching process or the like on a LCD substrate (glass substrate) by exciting plasma in a processing chamber by using microwaves. Known as such a plasma processing apparatus is an apparatus which supplies a microwave to a dielectric member provided on an inner surface of the processing chamber from a microwave source through a coaxial waveguide or a waveguide and excites a gas supplied into the processing chamber to plasma by using the energy of the microwave.
Recently, along with the scale-up of the substrate and so forth, the plasma processing apparatus is also getting bigger. If the dielectric member provided on the inner surface of the processing chamber is configured as a single plate, it is difficult to manufacture a large-size dielectric member, which may leads to an increase of manufacturing cost. To solve such a problem, the present inventors have proposed a technique of employing a dielectric plate divided into plurality by installing a plurality of dielectric members to a bottom surface of a cover of the processing chamber (see, for example, Patent Document 1).    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2006-310794